


Bloodstones and Blood Sacrifices: A Wedding Story

by daftalchemist



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bloodplay, Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Tentacles, Weird-ass marriage rituals, in a hellish Night Vale kind of way, it's like cotton candy, so much goddamn fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daftalchemist/pseuds/daftalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cecil is an old fashioned kind of guy who has always dreamed of his perfect day, and Carlos is losing his mind over how horrifying Night Vale weddings are</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by antique-rain (from Tumblr). Super thanks for that. You are a very welcome member on my team of betas.
> 
> I felt really uncomfortable writing as much fluff in this as I did, so I hope you guys enjoy it. Also all ritual ideas are entirely mine and were REALLY FUCKING FUN to come up with, so I hope you like them too. I think they're suitably Night Vale-ian in nature.

“Wait, _really_?” Cecil asked, expression no less bewildered than it was a moment ago when Carlos first posed the question.

“ _Yes_ , really,” Carlos replied, very much more frustrated than he was a moment ago when he first posed the question.

It was difficult to admit to himself that he might have been presumptuous, but Carlos really hadn't expected this sort of reaction from his boyfriend. Sure, they'd only been together for a little less than a year, but time didn't even really _mean_ anything in Night Vale, so, theoretically anyway, the length of time spent in the relationship shouldn't really matter when it came to asking Cecil to marry him.

Right?

Cecil wrinkled his nose as he wrapped his hands around the steaming cup of coffee in front of him. “I don't know...I think you're teasing me.”

Carlos sighed in an incredibly exaggerated manner as he rested his forehead on the kitchen table. “ _Why?_ ”

“I appreciate the thought!” Cecil said as he placed a comforting hand on Carlos' shoulder, trying so hard to sound flattered. “But, Carlos, it's just...that's kind of serious, don't you think? I mean, it's just sort of...permanent.”

“I _am_ serious!” Carlos shouted as he sat upright. He was feeling overwhelmingly exasperated now. Why did Cecil think he was joking about this kind of thing?

But then Cecil's eyes got an almost hopeful looking gleam in them. “You _really_ are serious, aren't you?”

Carlos laughed in relief as he grasped Cecil's face in his hands and kissed him. “Yes, I'm _very_ serious. Cecil, please marry me.”

And Carlos didn't need to be a scientist to know it was a universal truth that the most beautiful sight a person could ever witness was that of a violet-cheeked man crying as he said “yes”.


	2. The Engagement

Much like everything else in Night Vale, Carlos really should have known better than to think being engaged worked exactly as it did in the “real world”, but he was ecstatic and in love and didn't really think too much about the various forms they had to fill out until Cecil started talking about symbols and “which symbol should we take” and other odd sounding things.

“What do you mean, 'take a symbol'?” Carlos asked, stirring a wok full of relatively edible looking produce he'd found at the market.

“You know,” Cecil replied, all excited smiles and shining eyes, “for the branding.”

There was no way Carlos had heard him correctly. The vegetables frying on the stove must have been sizzling a little too loud and obscured his words.

“I'm sorry, the...the _what_?” Carlos said, possibly a little too panicked sounding.

“The _branding_ , of course,” replied Cecil with a smile. “You can't be engaged without a brand.”

Carlos turned off the stove and put the wok on a cold burner because he had a sneaking suspicion that when he turned around in just a moment to discuss this new information with his fiance, that he was going to forget the food entirely and burn it if he didn't.

“You're going to have to repeat that,” he said as he leaned back against the cooling stove, “because it sounded like you said we have to get branded.”

“I did, because we do,” said Cecil, rolling his eyes at how difficult a time Carlos was having grasping the concept.

“You mean like tattoos, right?”

Of course he didn't.

“No,” Cecil replied wistfully, lost in whatever romantic thoughts one might have about being branded. “The traditional way: hot irons placed over our hearts while the town council chants the branding incantation. I thought you knew that.”

Of course he didn't.

“But why?”

Cecil furrowed his brow in confusion, or irritation. “How else will people know we're engaged?”

“Can't I just get you a ring or something?” Carlos asked, trying to keep how frantic he was feeling out of his tone, but failing miserably. He could hardly be blamed. This wasn't what he signed on for when he asked Cecil to marry him.

Cecil wrinkled his nose in that adorable way he did when he was confused by Carlos' complete lack of knowledge at how the world worked. “Why would you use a ring?”

Of course he wouldn't. He wouldn't do anything that made sense, would he? Because Carlos lived in a town that had seen normal once a long time ago and had turned away in disgust, so intent on living out its days gathered around the bloodstone circle as they stubbornly ignored the dog park and branded each other to show love and commitment. And Carlos was nauseated to find that he _understood_ the practice. What was a ring but a bit of overpriced shaped gold? How did that show love? But the willingness to burn your flesh...what could possibly be a more powerful indicator of devotion than that?

This town was going to destroy his humanity, he was sure of it.

“Carlos?” Cecil said, eyes wide in worry, and perhaps fear. Fear that this outsider who claimed to love him was changing his mind now that he'd learned about the cultural norms of his home.

Carlos swallowed nervously as he forced a smile, trying his hardest to seem less visibly shaken. “So, what symbol should we get then?”

And the smile that lit up Cecil's beautiful face was more than worth the searing pain of the irons later that week. They'd decided to take an eye as their symbol. It seemed fitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who immediately understood the reference to RL Cecil with the chosen symbol gets a cookie


	3. The Wedding

Carlos had never actually been to a wedding before, but he was still fairly certain his own was very unconventional and completely horrifying in comparison. Specifically the part where he and his groom were dressed in what he was told were formal robes—red and void colored in traditional wedding fashion—and chained to a bloodstone circle with a line of tar smeared across their foreheads and down their noses. That alone should probably have been enough to fill Carlos with some trepidation, but he'd already come this far, and he was going to see it through.

The fact that weddings were traditionally presided over by a group of hooded figures was slightly more worrying. The fact that the figures were currently howling skywards in a terrifying mix of static and the plaintive wails of eldritch horrors from the deepest corners of mankind's fears was significantly worse. Only Cecil's fingers threaded through his own, and the radiant smile plastered so firmly on his face let Carlos know this was okay, it was normal, whatever the hell _that_ meant anymore. And Carlos found himself thinking that maybe it really _was_ okay. It was weird, certainly, but Cecil was here, and Cecil would be _his_ , and wasn't that what really mattered anyway?

But then the pain started.

It felt as though his very spirit was being torn from his chest, right through where he had been branded. He screamed in torment for a moment before Cecil's grip on his hand tightened, and he saw that though his beloved radio host's face twisted in agony, he was vehemently biting his lip and making little more than tortured grunting sounds, and somehow Carlos knew that keeping as silent as possible was required for the ceremony.

It was hard because his body ached and burned, every bone feeling like it was being ripped from his skeleton, every muscle like it was being torn free of the ligaments and tendons that held them in place. His brain boiled in a sea of anguish as his heartbeat thundered in his ears, and he was _so_ thankful that he could at least hear that over the incessant and grotesque litanies spouting from the hidden mouths of the hooded figures, because at least if he could hear his own heart, he knew he was still alive.

Then the pain ended as abruptly as it had started, the relief flooding through Carlos as though the torrential calm of the void had been poured into him through his heart and stoppered with a cork.

And he felt different, changed. Like his existence had become...larger. More connected somehow, like he was...

 _Tuned in_.

Yeah.

_Like on a radio._

How did...?

Carlos looked over and saw Cecil smiling at him, but not that grossly incandescent display of happiness and teeth that he usually wore. It was small, soft, intimate, like he didn't have to try so hard contorting his facial muscles to show his affection.

And he didn't, because Carlos could _feel_ it, but not in the conventional sense of knowing someone loved you. He felt it within his very being, this pulsing warmth that he somehow just knew was Cecil's love for him, and it was physical and real.

 _Me too_.

And that's when Carlos realized that whatever part of him the hooded figures had taken, they'd given it to Cecil, and they'd taken that same part from Cecil and given it to him. And he laughed as the chains were removed, lighthearted and joyful like he hadn't felt since he moved to Night Vale, or even before then.

Carlos pulled Cecil towards him as soon as their hands were free, kissing him deeply and ignoring the irritated throat-clearing sounds one of the hooded figures was making. He didn't care if this wasn't part of Night Vale wedding tradition; he was going to kiss his husband whether they liked it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't it funny how these chapters keep getting longer?
> 
> Next one is longest of all


	4. The Wedding Night

“This is... _actually_ a dungeon,” Carlos remarked as they stepped into the “consummation chamber”, as Cecil had called it.

It really just figured that not even the wedding night wouldn't go without an invasion of privacy in Night Vale, but even this was a bit too far. The room was dark and a bit damp with something that Carlos didn't want to think too deeply on leaving a wet-looking film on the walls. Candles flickered in multiple alcoves, which would have been romantic if it weren't for the shackles and chains on the walls, and the blood-stained cushions surrounding a grate nestled in the center of the slightly concave floor.

“Restraints are sometimes necessary. Not all weddings are exactly...consensual,” Cecil said in a very matter-of-fact manner before he switched immediately to biting his lip and gazing at Carlos with heavy-lidded eyes. “Or sometimes they're just for fun.”

Carlos flushed at the thought. He wasn't about to rule out bondage without even trying it, but that was definitely something he'd rather try at home in the comfort and well-lit space of their apartment. The consummation chamber was terrible, but also a required part of the wedding process, so Carlos took a deep breath and readied himself to have sex, he guessed.

Cecil was having no such problems. He was pressing himself flush against Carlos' body, rolling his hips and breathing hotly against Carlos' neck as his forked tongue worked its way along his jaw to lick at his ear. It would have been incredibly arousing and distracting, if it wasn't for the shiny dagger sitting on a pedestal on the other side of the room.

“That's for the bloodletting,” Cecil murmured into Carlos' ear before chasing the words with his tongue.

Carlos trembled for a moment but quickly grabbed hold of Cecil's arms and pushed him away just enough to get his attention. “It's for _what?_ ”

“The...the bloodletting, of course,” Cecil said, looking more than just a little hurt, but Carlos was a little too alarmed to worry about it at just that moment.

“Wha...why would we do that?” he asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Carlos,” Cecil whined, and Carlos did actually manage to feel guilty about ruining Cecil's perfect day even with all the panic he was experiencing. “It's tradition. That's why.”

Carlos could have stood there slack-jawed at the revelation until the end of time, but Cecil took his hand and led him to the pedestal, taking up the dagger, and in a fit of madness Carlos had to admit it looked well-crafted. It also had their names engraved on it, which was disturbing, and Carlos briefly humored the idea that maybe he still had time to back out of this whole marriage thing.

Cecil slid the flat of the blade along Carlos' cheek, who only managed to stay calm because of how much he trusted his new husband, which was an accomplishment given the excited gleam in Cecil's eyes and the way he was biting his lip.

“We each make a cut, doesn't matter where,” he explained. “Then we, you know...exchange fluids...”

“As in multiple types of fluids,” Carlos said, for clarification.

Cecil's face lit up, pleased that the scientist was _finally_ grasping the concept. “Yes! Exactly! And then we also have to let some blood into the grate in the floor, if it doesn't trickle down on its own anyway.”

“What is it used for?” asked Carlos, more than just a little creeped out and incredibly wary about what a town light Night Vale needed his blood for.

“Oh, nothing like that!” Cecil giggled. “It's just a custom. For luck!”

Yeah, because Night Vale _would_ use bloodletting on the wedding night as a way of ensuring luck in a new marriage. Carlos wanted to complain, to say that he didn't want to hurt Cecil, no matter the most likely horrific consequences for not completing the ceremony, but Cecil was already pulling him down onto the nearest cushion and he'd already come _this far_ , and he guessed the whole thing wasn't so bad if he just didn't wonder how many different people had contributed to the blood stains they were sitting on, or how much pain he'd already watched Cecil go through just to inflict more of it _himself_ , and-

 _Stop_.

Carlos realized tears were welling up in his eyes.

 _It's okay_.

And it kind of was, somehow. That...entity inside him that was Cecil radiated a magnificent warmth, all of his love roiling deep within Carlos' chest and giving him something not entirely unlike courage, and he hoped that he hadn't been filling Cecil's chest with a gripping dread this whole time.

Cecil smiled and brought Carlos' lips to his, kissing him softly, slowly, intimately, just like the way he'd begun smiling now, the way he smiled only for his husband. It was comforting, and Carlos sorely needed the comfort. The town had dumped a whole lot of weird on him that day; more than he'd experienced in almost two years living there combined. And it was weirdness that was directly interfering with his own life too, and he was really quite sick of it.

“Just do this for me, Carlos, please?” Cecil murmured against his lips. “We can do whatever you like for you when we get home.”

Carlos was the luckiest man who had ever gotten married.

Cecil pulled off his own formal robe before slipping Carlos' over his head, and this part, at least, was familiar. Cecil running his hands up Carlos' stomach and chest, teasing at his nipples until they stood stiff and sensitive, then continuing upwards until his hands were nestled firmly in his hair, and Carlos found himself moaning against Cecil's touch despite their surroundings and what was expected of them. But it still wasn't enough to get him more than half-erect, even with Cecil's tentacles dripping wet and wrapping lovingly around his cock.

“I'll only cut you once,” Cecil whispered in his ear, and it was simultaneously the sweetest thing he could have said and the last thing Carlos ever wanted to hear, “because I know you don't want it. But I _would_ like it if you could get a little more...free-form with me.”

Carlos sighed in resignation as he nodded, then bit his lip to stifle a yelp as the blade bit into his chest, opposite the brand. As expected, blood began to flow, perhaps a bit more than reasonably should have. The dagger seemed to be very well sharpened, making sure there would be no lack of material for the ritual. Carlos was glad the brunt of the pain was over, but now he was _bleeding_ so his discomfort wasn't exactly going away either. That was until Cecil began licking blood off his nipple with great enthusiasm, and the sensation of the eager mouth against him mixed with how absolutely wrong it looked to have his own blood slowly dripping down Cecil's chin was...well it was certainly making Carlos learn some new things about his sexuality. Cecil's warmth and excitement filled him from inside and out, pooling low in his stomach, and finally his dick was twitching under the pleasurable assault from his husband's tentacles. Carlos took hold of Cecil's chin and brought him up for a kiss, the familiar feeling of a forked tongue sliding against his own mixing wonderfully with the unfamiliar metallic taste of his own blood, and it was okay, almost good even.

But then Cecil was pressing the hilt of the dagger into his hand, and Carlos was immediately back to feeling uneasy until Cecil's hand was wrapped around his and guided him through the first nick, small to start in the same place as Carlos'. Cecil didn't shout, he didn't even whimper. He merely gasped as his eyelids fluttered shut, his cheeks purple, and Carlos' face rapidly heated as he realized Cecil not only _liked_ it, but was deriving great pleasure from it. And, as much as Carlos felt guilty about it, he found himself actually _wanting_ to get a little “free-form”, as Cecil had called it.

Carlos gently laid him back against the cushions, still stubbornly ignoring the horrific discoloration on them, instead watching the euphoria wash over Cecil's face, the excitement in his eyes as Carlos steeled himself with a shaky breath and made another incision just above his collarbone. Cecil trembled and moaned, and it was incredibly arousing, of course, but Carlos found himself distracted by the blood because, as with almost everything in Night Vale, it wasn't normal.

It was purple, for one thing, though that wasn't a surprise. One would expect a man that blushed purple would have purple blood running in his veins. No, the thing that had caught Carlos' eye was that it was thicker than it should be. It oozed slowly out of the cuts like a syrup instead of dripping liquid rivulets down his skin. He wiped the edge of the blade with his thumb and rubbed the blood between two fingers. It was definitely viscous and, now that Carlos thought about it, he'd never thought to test Cecil's blood before. It couldn't _possibly_ contain hemoglobin, or else it'd be red. So what _did_ it contain? And the color; Carlos half expected the stuff to have a grape flavor, but it didn't smell like anything so...

 _Go on_.

Well he had to, didn't he? Bloodletting rituals and all that.

He hesitantly licked the stuff off his thumb and forefinger and...well it didn't taste like grape, that was for sure. But it didn't taste metallic either so there obviously wasn't iron in it. It actually tasted... _sweet_. Only a very little bit, but still. Carlos chuckled as he shook his head at how ridiculous all of this was. He'd been strapped to a bloodstone circle, forcibly given a part of another man's soul, had just had a blood-tasting party with the same man in a dank dungeon of a room that he was still expected to have sex in, and oh by the way, his husband was packed full of glucose for some unknown reason.

He was also incredibly aroused and seeming to become even more so with each bite of the dagger, his tentacles writhing against themselves over and over, trying desperately to get stimulation. Carlos wrapped his hand around the writhing mass as he made the next mark low on Cecil's ribcage, and Cecil bucked into his grasp with a sob, arching his back as another cut was made along his hipbone, the purple of his blood and the black fluid dripping from his tentacles painting an enticing picture on his skin and-

Okay, Carlos had to put the dagger down. He was starting to frighten himself with how much he was enjoying doing this to the man he _loved_ , for crying out loud.

“No!” Cecil wailed as Carlos placed the dagger on the ground, then bit his lip before adding a desperate, “ _Please_. Just... _use_ it.”

What was Carlos doing? This was so messed up; his new husband _begging_ to be sliced up even though he was already bleeding from four incisions and still wearing Carlos' own blood like poorly applied lipstick, and it was so completely debauched that his cock was _throbbing_ , and Carlos decided that it was about time they exchanged their other bodily fluids.

Cecil's whimper sounded more satisfied than scared as Carlos pressed the tip of the dagger to his throat and entered him, Cecil already open and ready for him and tightening in rhythm around him in the same way he always was during sex, the way Carlos never questioned because he didn't want to or, quite frankly, _need_ to know how. There was already so many horrifying mysteries in his life, and he preferred to not let himself think about Cecil being one of them.

Cecil was beautiful, he was perfect, he was everything Carlos had wanted and more, much more, and that was all that mattered. Beautiful as he pressed his throat against the blade, decorating his skin with a dozen tiny purple marks, so eager to bleed for his scientist. Perfect with his eagerness to please Carlos, his impossibly undulating muscles pulling his husband deeper inside him with each thrust. And he _was_ everything; surrounding Carlos, pulling him closer, filling his chest with love and happiness so intense that it was physically suffocating, no room for air when everything was so-

 _Yes_.

Perfect.

 _Exactly_.

Carlos threaded his fingers through Cecil's tentacles and gave them a single firm tug as he licked the blood from Cecil's neck, and his hand was immediately coated in black fluid as Cecil wailed through his orgasm, tightening around Carlos so abruptly that his own release was practically forced on him. A strangled moan escaped his lips as Cecil purred against him, running his nails up Carlos' back as he rode out his orgasm before collapsing on the radio host in exhaustion, making sure the dagger was safely out of the way first.

Of course, now that the fun was over Carlos remembered that they were still in an incredibly unwelcoming stone-walled room with some sort of blood well buried in the center of it, and it wasn't exactly the best way to come down from the excitement. Cecil didn't seem phased, Carlos noted as he sat upright and pulled out of his equally exhausted lover, but then he _wouldn't_ be phased by Night Vale, would he? And now they had to deposit some blood in the grate or something and, ugh. This town. Well, at least Cecil had promised him whatever he wanted when they got home.

Carlos smiled as he wiped up some of his own blood with the edge of the dagger, followed by some of Cecil's, because what he wanted was to spend as many years as he could in happiness with his beloved husband, and he was sure he would get that.

He flicked the dagger towards the grate, ignoring the satisfied sound that the floor made as the droplets of blood fell between the bars, and looked back to find Cecil propped up on his elbows and smiling warmly.

“For luck, right?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah,” Cecil replied. “But...I don't think we'll actually need any.”


End file.
